CN108696940B

CN108696940B - Method and device for scheduling and communication by using unlicensed spectrum

Info

Publication number: CN108696940B
Application number: CN201710221082.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 贾波琦; 周婷; 胡宏林
Original assignee: Jiekai Communications Shenzhen Co Ltd
Current assignee: Jiekai Communications Shenzhen Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-04-06
Filing date: 2017-04-06
Publication date: 2020-09-18
Anticipated expiration: 2037-04-06
Also published as: CN108696940A; WO2018184303A1

Abstract

The invention discloses a scheduling method using an unlicensed spectrum, which comprises the following steps: acquiring a channel busy rate of an unlicensed spectrum; selecting scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, wherein the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station; and sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment so that the scheduling user equipment tries to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction. The invention also discloses a communication method and a device using the unlicensed spectrum and a scheduling device using the unlicensed spectrum. By the method, the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput can be improved.

Description

Method and device for scheduling and communication by using unlicensed spectrum

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for scheduling and communicating using an unlicensed spectrum.

Background

With the rapid development of wireless communication and the increasing demand for communication, the scarcity of spectrum resources, especially licensed spectrum resources, becomes a significant challenge for mobile communication. In order to meet the demand of the user equipment for continuous increase of speed, traffic and bandwidth, and to solve the current crisis of spectrum scarcity, 3GPP starts to research on Licensed Assisted Access (LAA). LAA is a secondary access technology that offloads cellular communication traffic to unlicensed spectrum.

LAA technology may cause interference to other wireless communication technologies currently operating in the frequency band, such as Wi-Fi, and LAA networks deployed by different operators may also interfere with each other. To achieve fair and friendly sharing of unlicensed spectrum, uplink transmission of LAA should be based on listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure.

LBT refers to a mechanism in which a device performs Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) on a channel before using the channel, and a CCA result indicates that the channel is available, and the device can only occupy the channel for transmission.

In the existing Uplink multi-User equipment Multiple-input Multiple-Output (UL MU-MIMO) transmission, in order to fully utilize the multiplexing gain of the channel, the number of User equipments scheduled by the base station is the same as the number of User equipments supported by the UL MU-MIMO channel, that is, the number of receiving antennas of the base station. The user equipments receiving the scheduling may be multiplexed in the frequency domain or the spatial domain to achieve multiplexing gain of the channel.

However, when the existing UL MU-MIMO is applied to the LAA system, each scheduled user equipment may not successfully occupy the allocated uplink channel due to LBT failure, for example, when LAA deployed by other wireless communication technologies and/or other operators shares the uplink channel. The more busy the channel, the higher the probability of failure of the scheduled user equipment to occupy the uplink channel. The failure of the scheduled user equipment to occupy the uplink channel causes the uplink time-frequency resource allocated to the scheduled user equipment to be wasted, and the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput are reduced.

Disclosure of Invention

The technical problem mainly solved by the invention is to provide a method, which can solve the problem that the multiplexing gain of a channel is reduced due to the possible uplink channel occupation failure of scheduled user equipment in uplink MU-MIMO transmission in an LAA system in the prior art.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a first aspect of the present invention provides a scheduling method using an unlicensed spectrum, including: acquiring a channel busy rate of an unlicensed spectrum; selecting scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, wherein the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station; and sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment so that the scheduling user equipment tries to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a second aspect of the present invention provides a communication method using an unlicensed spectrum, including: acquiring an average channel failure rate occupied by a channel in an unlicensed spectrum; and sending the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel to the base station, so that the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the calculated or received busy rate of the channel, wherein the busy rate of the channel is calculated according to the average failure rate of the occupied channel, and the number of the scheduled user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a third aspect of the present invention provides a scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, the apparatus including a processor and a communication circuit, the processor being connected to the communication circuit, and the processor being configured to execute instructions to implement the method provided by the first aspect of the present invention.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a fourth aspect of the present invention provides a communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, the apparatus including a processor and a communication circuit, the processor being connected to the communication circuit, the processor being configured to execute instructions to implement the method provided by the second aspect of the present invention.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a fifth aspect of the present invention provides a scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, the apparatus storing instructions that, when executed, implement the method provided by the first aspect of the present invention.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a sixth aspect of the present invention provides a communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, the apparatus storing instructions that, when executed, implement the method provided by the second aspect of the present invention.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a seventh aspect of the present invention provides a scheduling apparatus using an unlicensed spectrum, including: the acquisition module is used for acquiring the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum; the selection module is used for selecting and scheduling the user equipment according to the channel busy rate, and the number of the scheduled user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of the receiving antennas of the base station; and the scheduling module is used for sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment so that the scheduling user equipment tries to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction.

In order to solve the above technical problem, an eighth aspect of the present invention provides a communication apparatus using an unlicensed spectrum, the apparatus including: an obtaining module, configured to obtain an average channel failure rate occupied by a channel in an unlicensed spectrum; and the sending module is used for sending the average failure rate of occupied channels or the busy rate of the channels to the base station so that the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the calculated or received busy rate of the channels, wherein the busy rate of the channels is calculated according to the average failure rate of occupied channels, and the number of the scheduled user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: and selecting scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, wherein the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station, and compared with the prior art that the number of the scheduling user equipment is always equal to the number of the receiving antennas of the base station, in the face of the same number of competing objects, a greater number of scheduling user equipment enables the competition of the LAA system for the unlicensed spectrum to be stronger, the total number of the scheduling user equipment which successfully occupies the channel is increased, and thus the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput are improved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a first embodiment of a scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of scheduling in a first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a second embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a third embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a fourth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a fifth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a sixth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 8 is a diagram illustrating simulation results of using a random scheduling policy in an embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 9 is a diagram illustrating simulation results of using an orthogonal scheduling policy in an embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 10 is a diagram illustrating simulation results of using a proportional fair scheduling policy in an embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 11 is a flowchart illustrating a first embodiment of a communication method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 12 is a flowchart illustrating a second embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 13 is a flowchart of step S24 in fig. 12;

fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to a first embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 15 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of a scheduling apparatus using an unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 16 is a schematic structural diagram of a scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to a third embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 17 is a schematic structural diagram of a first embodiment of the communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 18 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of the communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention;

fig. 19 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of the communication device using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

The execution subject of the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention is a base station. The base station is connected with the core network and performs wireless communication with the user equipment to provide communication coverage for a corresponding geographic area. The base station may be a macro base station, a micro base station, a pico base station, or a home base station (femtocell). In some embodiments, a base station may also be referred to as a radio base station, access point, node B, evolved node B (eNodeB, eNB), gNB, or other suitable terminology. As shown in fig. 1, the present embodiment includes:

s11: and acquiring the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum.

The channel busy rate is used to indicate the statistical probability of the channel occupation failure. For a certain channel, the higher the busy rate of the channel, the more busy the channel, the more users sharing the channel, and the higher the failure probability of the scheduled User Equipment (UE) using the channel for uploading.

The base station can directly receive the channel busy rate uploaded by the user equipment. If the channel busy rate is calculated according to the average failure rate of the occupied channel, the base station can also calculate the channel busy rate by itself after receiving the average failure rate of the occupied channel uploaded by the user equipment.

S12: and selecting the scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, wherein the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of the receiving antennas of the base station.

The number of receive antennas of the base station is equal to the number of user equipments supported by the UL MU-MIMO channel. The number of the scheduled user equipments at different channel busy rates may be a constant value larger than the number of the receiving antennas of the base station, or may vary with the change of the channel busy rate, i.e. related to the channel busy rate.

Generally, if the number of scheduled user equipments is related to the channel busy rate, the correlation between the two is positive. The positive correlation herein does not necessarily mean that the higher the channel busy rate, the larger the number of scheduled user equipments may be, and may be maintained unchanged. That is, as the channel busy rate increases, the number of scheduled user equipments increases in a stepwise manner.

The low busy rate of the channel means that the number of users sharing the channel is small, and at this time, even if the number of the scheduled user equipment is small, for example, equal to the number of user equipment supported by the UL MU-MIMO channel, all UL MU-MIMO uplink channels can be guaranteed to be occupied with a high probability due to low contention pressure of the channel. And when the channel busy rate is higher, a larger number of scheduling user equipment is selected to enhance the competitiveness, and the total number of the scheduling user equipment which successfully occupies the channel is increased, so that the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput are improved. Compared with the fixed number of the scheduling user equipment, the number of the scheduling user equipment related to the channel busy rate is more flexible, and the signaling overhead can be reduced while the channel multiplexing gain is improved.

The base station can find out the optimal number of the scheduling user equipment under different channel busy rates according to theoretical calculation and/or simulation results, so that a corresponding relation table of the channel busy rate and the number of the scheduling user equipment is formed for use in the scheduling process.

For example, as shown in fig. 2, the UEs enclosed by the dashed line in the figure are UEs with LBT failure. The number of receiving antennas of the base station is 4, the user equipment scheduled by the base station in the prior art is 4 pieces of UE including UE1, UE2, UE3 and UE4, in the authorized spectrum, each UE can successfully perform uplink transmission, and the multiplexing gain of a channel reaches a maximum value of 4; in the unlicensed spectrum, each UE must perform LBT before uplink transmission due to the existence of other users sharing the channel, and the LBT of the UE3 fails, so that uplink transmission cannot be performed, and the multiplexing gain of the channel is only 3. In this embodiment, the UE scheduled by the base station includes 6 UEs 1-6, and although LBT of UE3 and UE6 fails, the remaining 4 UEs still can successfully perform uplink transmission, and the multiplexing gain of the channel is increased to 4.

S13: and sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment.

The base station generally uses a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) to send a scheduling grant instruction to the selected scheduling user equipment, where the scheduling grant instruction may be carried by a carrier of an unlicensed spectrum or a carrier of a licensed spectrum.

The scheduling authorization instruction at least comprises uplink time-frequency resource information distributed to the scheduling user equipment, and the uplink time-frequency resource information indicates an uploading time period and frequency domain resources occupied by the uploading. And the scheduling user equipment tries to use the channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction, specifically, the scheduling user equipment executes LBT operation before and/or after the start of an uplink time-frequency resource information, performs CCA on the channel corresponding to the uplink time-frequency resource information, uses the channel for uplink transmission in the uplink time-frequency resource information when the CCA result shows that the channel is available, and otherwise, abandons the uplink transmission.

Through the implementation of the embodiment, the base station selects the scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of the receiving antennas of the base station, and compared with the fixed number of scheduling user equipment in the prior art, the scheduling user equipment with more number faces to the same number of competition objects, so that the competition of an LAA system for the unlicensed spectrum is stronger, the total number of the scheduling user equipment which successfully occupies the channel is increased, and the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput are improved.

As shown in fig. 3, a second embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, where a channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of an average failure rate of occupied channels, and a base station periodically receives the average failure rate of occupied channels reported by a user equipment. This embodiment is an extension of the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention, and therefore, the same parts as those of the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention are not described herein again. The embodiment comprises the following steps:

s111: and the base station sends a reporting period of occupying the average failure rate of the channel to the user equipment A.

Generally, the base station may use Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration/reconfiguration signaling to send a reporting period occupying an average channel failure rate to the ue a, and may also send information of the unlicensed spectrum channel to the ue a. Only one ue is shown in the figure, and actually the base station may send a reporting period of the average failure rate of occupied channels to a plurality of ues.

This step may be performed on a larger time scale than the subsequent information acquisition and scheduling step, i.e., the subsequent steps may be repeatedly performed a plurality of times after performing this step once, for example, the base station performs this step once after the user equipment completes initial access, and then repeatedly performs the subsequent steps until the connection with the user equipment is disconnected.

S112: the user equipment A reports the average failure rate of the occupied channel periodically.

The ue may use L1/L2 signaling to Report the average failure rate of occupied channels, such as Buffer Status Report (BSR), Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS), Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) or RRC measurement Report, although newly defined L1/L2 signaling may also be used.

S113: and the base station performs low-pass filtering on the average failure rate of the occupied channel to obtain the busy rate of the channel.

The channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of the average failure rate of the occupied channel. Specifically, the channel busy rate of the ith channel of the u user equipment in the unlicensed spectrum

Comprises the following steps:

where at is the time window used for low pass filtering,

the average failure rate of the current occupied channel of the ith user equipment in the ith channel is calculated,

and the average failure rate of the channel occupied for the previous time of the ith channel is the u user equipment. The size of Δ t may be a preset value, or may be a time period length between a time when the ith user equipment previously counts the average failure rate of the occupied channel and a time when the ith user equipment currently counts the average failure rate of the occupied channel, or a time period length between a time when the average failure rate of the occupied channel is received last time and a time when the average failure rate of the occupied channel is received currently.

S114: and the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the channel busy rate.

If the user equipment A is included in the scheduling user equipment, the subsequent steps are performed.

S115: the base station sends a scheduling grant instruction to the user equipment A.

S116: user equipment a performs LBT.

And the user equipment A performs CCA on the channel before and/or after the start of the uploading period specified in the scheduling authorization instruction, the CCA result indicates that the channel is available, which means that LBT is successful, and executes the subsequent steps, otherwise, the uplink transmission is abandoned.

S117: the user equipment a performs uplink transmission.

As shown in fig. 4, a third embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, where the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of an average failure rate of occupied channels, and the base station periodically receives the average failure rate of occupied channels reported by the user equipment. The difference between this embodiment and the second embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention is that the ue is event-triggered and reports the average failure rate of the occupied channel aperiodically, and the same parts are not described herein again. The embodiment comprises the following steps:

s121: and the base station sends a reporting trigger condition of the average failure rate of the occupied channel to the user equipment B.

Similarly, the base station uses Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration/reconfiguration signaling to send a reporting trigger condition of the occupied channel average failure rate to the user equipment B, and may also send information of the unlicensed spectrum channel to the user equipment B.

The reporting triggering condition at least comprises a reporting threshold, and also comprises parameter information compared with the reporting threshold and what relationship the parameter and the reporting threshold satisfy can trigger reporting. For example, the reporting trigger condition is that a variation value of the average failure rate of the occupied channels exceeds a reporting threshold.

S122: and the user equipment B judges whether the reporting triggering condition is met.

S123: and the user equipment B reports the average failure rate of the occupied channel.

The ue may use L1/L2 signaling to Report the average failure rate of occupied channels, such as Buffer Status Report (BSR), Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS), Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) or RRC measurement Report, although newly defined L1/L2 signaling may also be used. In addition, the user equipment can also report the time for counting the average failure rate of the occupied channel at the same time.

S124: and the base station performs low-pass filtering on the average failure rate of the occupied channel to obtain the average failure rate of the channel.

S125: and the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the channel busy rate.

If the user equipment B is included in the scheduling user equipment, the subsequent steps are performed.

S126: and the base station sends a scheduling authorization instruction to the user equipment B.

S127: user equipment B performs LBT.

If the LBT is successful, the subsequent steps are performed.

S128: and the user equipment B carries out uplink transmission.

As shown in fig. 5, a fourth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, where the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of an average failure rate of occupying a channel, and the base station periodically receives the channel busy rate reported by the user equipment. The difference between this embodiment and the second embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention is that the ue reports the channel busy rate instead of the occupied channel average failure rate, and the same parts are not described herein again. The embodiment comprises the following steps:

s131: and the base station sends the reporting period of the channel busy rate to the user equipment C.

Similarly, the base station may send a report period of the occupied channel busy rate to the user equipment C using Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration/reconfiguration signaling.

S132: and the user equipment C obtains the average failure rate of the occupied channel and performs low-pass filtering on the average failure rate to obtain the busy rate of the channel.

S133: the user equipment C reports the channel busy rate periodically.

Similarly, the user equipment may report the channel busy rate using L1/L2 signaling. In order to reduce signaling overhead, the channel busy rate reported by the user equipment may not be a specific numerical value, but a level flag, and actual numerical ranges corresponding to different levels are different. For example, the channel busy rate is a level indicator occupying 2-bit, and the actual value ranges corresponding to different levels are shown in table 1.

Grade mark	Actual numerical range
		00	[0％,25％)
01	[25％,50％)
		10	[50％,75％)
11	[75％,100％]

TABLE 1

S134: and the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the channel busy rate.

If the user equipment C is included in the scheduled user equipment, the subsequent steps are performed.

S135: the base station sends a scheduling grant instruction to the user equipment C.

S136: the user equipment C performs LBT.

If the LBT is successful, the subsequent steps are performed.

S137: user equipment C performs uplink transmission.

As shown in fig. 6, a fifth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, where the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of an average failure rate of occupying a channel, and the base station receives the channel busy rate reported by the ue in an event-triggered manner. The difference between this embodiment and the third embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention is that the user equipment reports the channel busy rate instead of the occupied channel average failure rate, and the same parts are not described herein again. The embodiment comprises the following steps:

s141: and the base station sends the reporting triggering condition of the channel busy rate to the user equipment D.

Similarly, the base station may send a reporting trigger condition of the busy rate of the occupied channel to the user equipment C using Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration/reconfiguration signaling.

S142: and the user equipment D acquires the average failure rate of the occupied channel and performs low-pass filtering on the average failure rate to obtain the busy rate of the channel.

S143: and the user equipment D judges whether the reporting triggering condition is met.

S144: the user equipment D reports the channel busy rate.

S145: and the base station selects and schedules the user equipment according to the channel busy rate.

If the user equipment D is included in the scheduling user equipment, the subsequent steps are performed.

S146: and the base station sends a scheduling authorization instruction to the user equipment D.

S147: the user equipment D performs LBT.

If the LBT is successful, the subsequent steps are performed.

S148: and the user equipment D carries out uplink transmission.

In the second to fifth embodiments of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention described above, the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of the average failure rate of occupied channels. In other embodiments, the average failure rate of occupied channels may be directly used as the busy rate of channels, or may be calculated by other methods according to the average failure rate of occupied channels. Compared with direct adoption, the low-pass filtering is carried out on the average failure rate of the occupied channel, so that the influence of past channel occupation failure conditions (for example, before the time of counting the average failure rate of the occupied channel for the last time) can be reduced, and the obtained channel busy rate can more accurately describe the current state of the channel.

As shown in fig. 7, a sixth embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, and after step S11, the scheduling method further includes:

s14: the channel busy rate is saved in a channel busy rate table.

The base station may update the channel busy rate table according to the acquired channel busy rate, and this operation may be performed after acquiring the channel busy rate each time, or may be performed at intervals of a specified time or after the number/type of the acquired channel busy rates meets the requirement. The channel busy rate stored in the channel busy rate table may not be a specific value, but may be a level flag, and the actual value ranges corresponding to different levels are different. This embodiment may be combined with any of the above embodiments.

The channel busy rate table may be expressed as

Where I is 1,2, …, I, U is 1,2, …, U, I being the total number of channels and U being the total number of user equipments. The channel busy rate table may be stored in a matrix, array, or other possible form. If the channel busy rate of a certain user equipment on a certain channel cannot be obtained, for example, the user equipment does not count/report the average channel occupied failure rate/channel busy rate of the channel, the corresponding position in the table may be left empty or no corresponding data is represented by a special character.

We perform numerical simulations using different numbers of scheduled ues at different channel busy rates. The LAA secondary cell has N pieces of user equipment in total, and coexists with other LAA secondary cells and WiFi. The base station of the LAA secondary cell is equipped with M antennas, and selects K (K is M in the prior art) user equipments to use the same time-frequency resource for uplink transmission in each scheduling interval. The selected ue performs LBT, and the number of successful ues is K'. Furthermore, we use two parameters to define the channel busy rate, i.e. the probability that α% of all the ues have U (a, b), which is a uniform distribution over the interval [ a, b ], to occupy the channel failure. The parameters are defined as follows:

n20: 20:200, M4, K4/5/6/7 (K M in the prior art).

And a is 20/60/100, and U (a, b) is U (0,0.2)/U (0.4,0.6)/U (0.8, 1.0).

Scheduling strategy: random (Random)/Orthogonal (Orthogonal)/Proportional Fair (PF).

A receiver: minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) -Ordered Successive Interference Cancellation (OSIC).

Signal-to-Noise Ratio (Signal-Noise Ratio, SNR): SNR is aSNR rand (1, N), and aSNR is 10.

Scheduling times are as follows: 100 x N.

If K' >4, then the scheduling is cancelled and all scheduled user equipments are deleted.

In the simulation, the number K of scheduled user equipments, M, 4 is used as a baseline, and the scheduling in the LTE licensed spectrum is used as another reference for performance degradation of different numbers of scheduled user equipments in the LAA system.

The simulation results are shown in fig. 8-10, where fig. 8 is the simulation result using the random scheduling strategy, fig. 9 is the simulation result using the orthogonal scheduling strategy, and fig. 10 is the simulation result using the proportional fair scheduling strategy.

As can be seen from fig. 8, in the case of using the random scheduling policy, when the channel busy rate is greater than [ 20%, U (0.8,1.0) ], [ 60%, U (0.4,0.6) ], or [ 100%, U (0.4,0.6) ], the system throughput is better than the prior art, and the corresponding optimal numbers of scheduled user equipments are 5,5, and 6, respectively. As can be seen from fig. 9, in the case of using the orthogonal scheduling strategy, when the channel busy rate is greater than [ 60%, U (0.4,0.6) ] or [ 100%, U (0.4,0.6) ], the system throughput is better than the prior art, and the corresponding optimal number of scheduled user equipments is 6,7 respectively. As can be seen from fig. 10, in the case of using the proportional fair scheduling policy, when the channel busy rate is greater than [ 20%, U (0.8,1.0) ], [ 60%, U (0.8,1.0) ], or [ 100%, U (0.4,0.6) ], the system throughput is better than the prior art, and the corresponding optimal numbers of scheduled user equipments are 6,7, and 7, respectively.

The comprehensive simulation result shows that the more busy the channel (the higher the channel busy rate), the larger the number of the optimal scheduling user equipment is, and the more the system throughput is improved.

The implementation subject of the first embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention is user equipment, which may be fixed or mobile and may be a cellular phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a wireless modem, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a cordless phone, etc. As shown in fig. 11, the present embodiment includes:

s21: acquiring an occupied channel average failure rate of a channel in the unlicensed spectrum.

Generally, the average failure rate of the occupied channel is the ratio of the number of channel failures occupying the unlicensed spectrum to the total number of attempted occupation, i.e., the ratio of the number of LBT operation failures on the channel to the total number. The user equipment may perform LBT on the channel only after receiving the scheduling grant instruction from the base station to attempt to occupy the channel, or may perform LBT on the channel periodically/aperiodically (whether uplink transmission is required or not) to detect the busy degree of the channel.

S22: and sending the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel to the base station.

The user equipment can send the average failure rate of the occupied channel to the base station, and then the base station calculates the busy rate of the channel according to the average failure rate of the occupied channel; or the user equipment calculates the channel busy rate according to the average failure rate of the occupied channel and then sends the channel busy rate to the base station. The base station can select scheduling user equipment according to the calculated or received channel busy rate, and the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station.

The busy rate of the channel may be a low-pass filtering result of the average failure rate of the occupied channel, the ue may send the average failure rate of the occupied channel/the busy rate of the channel periodically/aperiodically, and the ue may send the average failure rate of the occupied channel/the busy rate of the channel by using L1/L2 signaling.

Through the implementation of the embodiment, the user equipment counts the average failure rate of the occupied channel and sends the average failure rate of the occupied channel or the calculated busy rate of the channel to the base station. The base station selects the scheduling user equipment according to the calculated or received channel busy rate, the number of the scheduling user equipment is larger than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station, compared with the fixed number of the scheduling user equipment in the prior art, the scheduling user equipment with more number faces to the same number of competition objects, the competition of an LAA system for the unlicensed spectrum is stronger, the total number of the scheduling user equipment which successfully occupies the channel is increased, and therefore the multiplexing gain of the channel and the system throughput are improved.

As shown in fig. 12, the second embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention is based on the first embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention, and after step S22, the method further includes:

s23: and receiving a scheduling authorization instruction from the base station.

In this embodiment, the ue is selected by the base station as a scheduling ue. The scheduling authorization command at least comprises distributed uplink time-frequency resource information, and the uplink time-frequency resource information indicates an uploading time period and frequency domain resources occupied by the uploading.

S24: and attempting to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling grant instruction.

As shown in fig. 13, the present step specifically includes:

s241: the channels in the unlicensed spectrum are CCA'd before and/or after the start of an upload period specified in the scheduling grant instruction.

The object for performing CCA at least comprises a channel corresponding to the uplink time-frequency resource information.

S242: and if the CCA result indicates that the channel is available, the channel is used for uplink transmission, and if the CCA result indicates that the channel is not available, the uplink transmission is abandoned.

As shown in fig. 14, a first embodiment of the scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes: processor 110 and communication circuit 120, communication circuit 120 is connected to processor 110.

The communication circuit 120 is an interface for transmitting and receiving data, and communicates with other communication devices using a scheduling apparatus of an unlicensed spectrum.

The processor 110 controls the operation of the scheduling device using the unlicensed spectrum, and the processor 110 may also be referred to as a Central Processing Unit (CPU). The processor 110 may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities. The processor 110 may also be a general purpose processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

The processor 110 is configured to execute instructions to implement the methods provided by any embodiment of the method for scheduling using unlicensed spectrum and combinations thereof that are non-conflicting.

As shown in fig. 15, a second embodiment of the scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes: a memory 210, the memory 210 storing instructions that when executed implement the method provided by any embodiment of the invention of scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum and a non-conflicting combination.

The Memory 210 may include a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a Flash Memory (Flash Memory), a hard disk, an optical disk, and the like.

As shown in fig. 16, the third embodiment of the scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes:

an obtaining module 31, configured to obtain a channel busy rate of an unlicensed spectrum;

a selecting module 32, configured to select scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, where the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station;

and the scheduling module 33 is configured to send a scheduling grant instruction to the scheduling user equipment, so that the scheduling user equipment attempts to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling grant instruction.

The scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum in the above embodiments may be a base station, or may be a separate component that may be integrated in the base station, for example, a baseband board, and the functions and possible extensions of each portion may specifically refer to the description in the corresponding embodiment of the scheduling method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention, and are not repeated here.

As shown in fig. 17, a first embodiment of a communication apparatus using an unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes: processor 410 and communication circuit 420, communication circuit 420 is connected to processor 410.

The communication circuit 420 is an interface for transmitting and receiving data, and communicates with other communication devices using a communication apparatus of an unlicensed spectrum.

The processor 410 controls the operation of the communication device using the unlicensed spectrum, and the processor 410 may also be referred to as a Central Processing Unit (CPU). The processor 410 may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities. The processor 410 may also be a general purpose processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

The processor 410 is configured to execute instructions to implement the methods provided by any embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum and combinations thereof that are non-conflicting.

As shown in fig. 18, a second embodiment of the communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes: memory 510, memory 510 storing instructions that when executed implement the methods provided by any embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum and combinations thereof that do not conflict.

The Memory 510 may include a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a Flash Memory (Flash Memory), a hard disk, an optical disk, and the like.

As shown in fig. 19, a third embodiment of the communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum according to the present invention includes:

an obtaining module 61, configured to obtain an average channel failure rate occupied by a channel in an unlicensed spectrum;

a sending module 62, configured to send the average failure rate of occupied channels or the busy rate of channels to the base station, so that the base station selects to schedule the user equipment according to the calculated or received busy rate of channels, where the busy rate of channels is calculated according to the average failure rate of occupied channels, and the number of the scheduled user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station.

The communication apparatus using unlicensed spectrum in the above embodiments may be a user equipment, or may be a separate component that can be integrated in the user equipment, for example, a baseband chip, and the functions and possible extensions of each part may specifically refer to the description in the corresponding embodiment of the communication method using unlicensed spectrum of the present invention, and are not repeated here.

In the embodiments provided in the present invention, it should be understood that the disclosed method and apparatus can be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the modules or units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the embodiment.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present invention may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit. The integrated unit can be realized in a form of hardware, and can also be realized in a form of a software functional unit.

The integrated unit, if implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present invention may be embodied in the form of a software product, which is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a network device, or the like) or a processor (processor) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present invention. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and other various media capable of storing program codes.

The above description is only an embodiment of the present invention, and not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and all modifications of equivalent structures and equivalent processes performed by the present specification and drawings, or directly or indirectly applied to other related technical fields, are included in the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling using unlicensed spectrum, comprising:

acquiring a channel busy rate of an unlicensed spectrum;

selecting scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, wherein the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of a base station, and the number of the scheduling user equipment is positively correlated with the channel busy rate;

and sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment so that the scheduling user equipment tries to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum to perform uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction.

2. The method of claim 1,

the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of an average failure rate of occupied channels.

3. The method of claim 2,

the channel busy rate of the ith channel of the u-th user equipment in the unlicensed spectrum

Comprises the following steps:

where at is the time window used for the low-pass filtering,

and the average failure rate of the channel occupied for the previous time of the ith channel is the u user equipment.

4. The method of claim 2,

the acquiring the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum comprises:

and periodically or event-triggered receiving the average failure rate of the occupied channel reported by the user equipment, and performing low-pass filtering on the average failure rate of the occupied channel to obtain the busy rate of the channel.

5. The method of claim 4,

before the periodically or event-triggered receiving of the average failure rate of occupied channels reported by the ue, further includes:

and sending the report period or the report triggering condition of the average failure rate of the occupied channel to the user equipment.

6. The method of claim 1,

the acquiring the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum comprises:

and receiving the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum reported by the user equipment periodically or in an event-triggered manner.

7. The method of claim 6,

before the periodically or event-triggered receiving of the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum reported by the user equipment, the method further includes:

and sending the reporting period or the reporting trigger condition of the channel busy rate to the user equipment.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7,

the method further comprises the following steps of obtaining the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum:

and saving the channel busy rate in a channel busy rate table.

9. A method of communication using unlicensed spectrum, comprising:

acquiring an average channel failure rate occupied by a channel in an unlicensed spectrum;

sending the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel to a base station, so that the base station selects and schedules user equipment according to the calculated or received busy rate of the channel, wherein the busy rate of the channel is calculated according to the average failure rate of the occupied channel, the number of the scheduled user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station, and the number of the scheduled user equipment is positively correlated with the busy rate of the channel.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a scheduling authorization instruction from the base station;

and attempting to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling grant instruction.

11. The method of claim 10,

the attempting to use the channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling grant instruction includes:

performing idle channel assessment on channels in the unlicensed spectrum before and/or after the start of an uploading period specified in the scheduling grant instruction;

and if the evaluation result shows that the channel is available, the channel is used for uplink transmission, and if the evaluation result shows that the channel is unavailable, the uplink transmission is abandoned.

12. The method of claim 9,

the channel busy rate is a low-pass filtering result of the average failure rate of the occupied channels, and the channel busy rate of the ith user equipment in the unlicensed spectrum

Comprises the following steps:

where at is the time window used for the low-pass filtering,

13. The method of claim 9,

the average failure rate of the occupied channels is the ratio of the number of times of channel failure in the unlicensed spectrum to the total number of times of attempted occupation.

14. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 13,

the sending the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel to the base station comprises:

transmitting the occupied channel average failure rate or channel busy rate to the base station using L1/L2 signaling.

15. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 13,

and periodically sending the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel to the base station.

16. The method of claim 15,

the periodically sending the occupied channel average failure rate or the occupied channel busy rate to the base station further comprises:

and receiving the reporting period of the occupied channel average failure rate or the channel busy rate from the base station.

17. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 13,

judging whether the average failure rate of the occupied channels or the busy rate of the channels meets the reporting triggering condition or not;

and if so, sending the average failure rate or busy rate of the occupied channel to the base station.

18. The method of claim 17,

before the determining whether the average failure rate of the occupied channels or the busy rate of the channels meets the reporting trigger condition, the method further includes:

and receiving a reporting trigger condition of the average failure rate or the busy rate of the occupied channel from the base station.

19. A scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, comprising a processor and a communication circuit, the processor being connected to the communication circuit;

the processor is configured to execute instructions to implement the method of any one of claims 1-8.

20. A communication device using unlicensed spectrum comprising a processor and communication circuitry, said processor coupled to said communication circuitry;

the processor is configured to execute instructions to implement the method of any one of claims 9-18.

21. A scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum having stored instructions that, when executed, implement the method of any of claims 1-8.

22. A communication device using unlicensed spectrum having stored instructions that, when executed, implement the method of any of claims 9-18.

23. A scheduling apparatus using unlicensed spectrum, comprising:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring the channel busy rate of the unlicensed spectrum;

a selection module, configured to select a scheduling user equipment according to the channel busy rate, where the number of the scheduling user equipment is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station, and the number of the scheduling user equipment is positively correlated to the channel busy rate;

and the scheduling module is used for sending a scheduling authorization instruction to the scheduling user equipment so that the scheduling user equipment tries to use a channel in the unlicensed spectrum for uplink transmission according to the scheduling authorization instruction.

24. A communications apparatus that utilizes unlicensed spectrum, comprising:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain an average channel failure rate occupied by a channel in an unlicensed spectrum;

a sending module, configured to send the average channel busy rate or the average failure rate of occupied channels to a base station, so that the base station selects a scheduling user equipment according to the calculated or received average channel busy rate, where the average channel busy rate is calculated according to the average channel busy rate, the number of scheduling user equipments is greater than or equal to the number of receiving antennas of the base station, and the number of scheduling user equipments is positively correlated to the channel busy rate.